Bitch Media - social classhttp://bitchmagazine.org/taxonomy/term/11307/0
enThe 99%: The (Class) Difference Between “The Boy Who Lived” and “The Girl on Fire,” Part Twohttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-class-difference-between-%E2%80%9Cthe-boy-who-lived%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Cthe-girl-on-fire%E2%80%9D-part-2
<p><em><img style="float: left;" src="http://images.wikia.com/thehungergames/images/0/02/Mockingjay.png" alt="bird in a gold circle holding an arrow in its beak" width="200" height="200" />This is the second of two posts comparing the use of class difference in the </em>Harry Potter <em>and </em>The Hunger Games <em>series</em>.&nbsp; <em> <a href="/post/the-99-the-class-difference-harry-potter-hunger-games"target="_blank">Part one focused on Harry</a>; today will focus on Katniss. &nbsp;</em><em>Also, <strong>spoiler alert</strong>.</em></p>
<p>Suzanne Collins's <em>The Hunger Games</em> is a story of survival. Quite literally, it's about physical survival while being hunted, but there's more than that: there's strength when faced with loss, creativity when faced with limited options, and resiliency when faced with continued hardship.&nbsp; Katniss Everdeen does whatever it takes to survive.&nbsp; She charms those with the power to help her, she allies herself with those with the power to protect her—she even, occasionally, begs from those with the power to save her.</p>
<p>While Katniss begs, borrows, steals, and kills her way through the series, we, as the reader, don't know how much we can or should trust her.&nbsp; She's a much more ambiguous hero than Harry Potter; we're never quite sure how manipulative she's being, or whether or not her actions are actually justified.&nbsp; This is because Katniss's actions are largely a response to her own oppression, while Harry's aren't.</p>
<p>Harry is the hero of his story because of something he unknowingly did as a baby, simply by surviving.&nbsp; There's a sense of destiny and prophecy being fulfilled as he fights Voldemort.&nbsp; Katniss, in contrast, becomes the hero through her own bravery, elicited by the literal luck of the draw.&nbsp; It's a role she buys into in stages, and has thrust upon her in some ways—and it's frequently unclear the extent to which she's a figurehead being used by people with real power, and the extent to which she's truly inspiring and leading.&nbsp; All of this makes Harry more lovable than Katniss, but less relatable.&nbsp; Real life heroes aren't born as such; they become that way.&nbsp; Whatever growth Harry goes through (and it's a lot), he still is, first and foremost, the Boy Who Lived, through no intention of his own.&nbsp; Katniss, instead, is the Girl on Fire, a role she deliberately chooses to fulfill.&nbsp; I think this difference is a reflection of her upward mobility, her rise from oppression to freedom.</p>
<p>Ultimately, though, <em>The Hunger Games</em> isn't just a story of survival; it's a story of popular uprising and revolution.&nbsp; When we first meet Katniss, she's a starving young woman, forced to break the law to feed her family after her father dies working in unsafe conditions.&nbsp; Her community of District 12 is kept in ignorance from the goings on in other districts because the media are controlled by the wealthy, remote, elite Capitol.&nbsp; Yes, Panem is a futuristic dystopia.&nbsp; But <a href="/post/the-99-finding-north-food-feminist-film-review-sundance">lack of food</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-undercover-boss-labor-feminism-television">lack of respect for workers</a>, and <a href="/post/the-99-were-not-broke-feminist-film-review-economy-sundance">concentrated power and control of the media</a>?&nbsp; Those things are real.&nbsp; (Of course, then in <em>The Hunger Games</em>, the poorer districts are forced to send young people to fight to the death.&nbsp; This part is fictional—unless you count the <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/52233/">heavy military recruiting in lower income communities</a>.&nbsp; I'll let you decide.)&nbsp;</p>
<p>The <em>Hunger Games</em> trilogy was first published in September 2008, the same month our economy began collapsing before our eyes and the first TARP relief was passed.&nbsp; Are we surprised these books found such resonance for adults, as well as teens?</p>
<p>Generally, though: why compare <em>Harry Potter</em> and <em>The Hunger Games</em> at all?&nbsp; I've not initiated this comparison to say that one is superior to the other; each series is completely endearing and wholly addicting in its own way.&nbsp; I've brought them together to look at the different ways these series teach lessons to young people about social class, privilege, character, and the growth of heroes. Harry and Katniss are very different heroes because they live in very different worlds.&nbsp; But if I had to guess whether most people felt their world more closely resembled the private boarding school with clear-cut lines between good and evil, or the dystopic district with frustrated and struggling neighbors, I'd say there's a real reason Katniss's mythology has captured audiences as thoroughly as Harry did in his more prosperous heyday.</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-the-class-difference-harry-potter-hunger-games"target="_blank">The (Class) Difference Between "The Boy Who Lived" and "The Girl on Fire," Part One</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-were-not-broke-feminist-film-review-economy-sundance"target="_blank">We're Not Broke</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-class-difference-between-%E2%80%9Cthe-boy-who-lived%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Cthe-girl-on-fire%E2%80%9D-part-2#commentsHarry Potterheroesinequalitysocial classThe Hunger GamesBooksThu, 02 Feb 2012 18:18:31 +0000Gretchen Sisson15058 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: The (Class) Difference Between “The Boy Who Lived” and “The Girl on Fire,” Part One http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-class-difference-harry-potter-hunger-games
<p><em><img style="float: left;" src="http://images.wikia.com/harrypotter/images/5/5c/Harry-potter-gringotts-bank-coin-collection-by-noble-collection-collectibles-us.jpg" alt="gold coins from Harry Potter" width="200" height="200" /><a href="/harry-potter"target="_blank">Harry Potter</a></em> and <em><a href="/post/the-hunger-games-film-whitens-its-warrior"target="_blank">The Hunger Games</a> </em>have nearly nothing in common, except for the small fact that these books, written for children and young adults, have managed to capture the imagination and rapt attention of readers of all ages.&nbsp; Their created worlds are wholly immersive; traveling to Hogwarts or District 12 means temporarily leaving your own space and coming to understand a new society with different ways of making meaning, finding success, doing good, and—as always—preserving hierarchy.&nbsp; The different ways that social class is handled in both series are independently insightful, but more interesting in comparison.&nbsp; Today I'll focus discussion on more on Harry Potter; my next post will focus more on Katniss Everdeen.&nbsp;</p>
<p>J. K. Rowling's <em>Harry Potter</em> series embraces familiar tropes of social class mythology in the creation of the wizarding world. The <a href="/post/villainy-vengeance-very-rich-TV-feminism-class">evil wizards and witches are, per usual, wealthy</a>, though their wealth is nearly coincidental to their worldview—it seems that racism rather than classism would be a more apt paradigm (this despite the fact that the wizarding world seems disproportionately white).&nbsp; The evil wizards and witches are mostly "purebloods" who strive to eliminate Muggle blood from wizarding families—they shriek the term "Mudblood!" in the same dehumanizing way someone would use a racial slur.&nbsp; The Death Eaters are even cloaked in hooded capes reminiscent of Klan members.&nbsp; There's a collision of privilege here, based on real class advantage and irrational, dangerous, imagined "racial" superiority.</p>
<p>Yet, the wizards are also almost all presented as wealthy, as old families with old bloodlines and old money, clinging to power for power's sake.&nbsp; In contrast, Harry's best friend Ron comes from a poorer family; he buys used schoolbooks, he wears hand-me-down robes, he receives homemade Christmas presents and can't afford the newest broom.&nbsp; Hermione comes from a middle-class Muggle family, where both parents are dentists.&nbsp; Hagrid's accent and lack of social polish show his low cultural capital; Dobby the house elf lives in servitude. In truth, most of Harry allies seem to have less class privilege that most of his enemies.</p>
<p>Lest we forget, though, Harry himself is rich.&nbsp; His parents left him piles of galleons in Gringott's.&nbsp; He can splurge and buy candy for his friends on the Hogwarts Express, and he can afford the newest, fanciest Firebolt.&nbsp; However, his class privilege seems "undone" by the poverty of his upbringing, brought about by his aunt and uncle's neglect.&nbsp; By living under the stairs, nearly starving, and playing perfectly the part of abandoned orphan, Harry "redeems" himself for his wealth.</p>
<p>In contrast, <em>The Hunger Games</em> is more directly about class conflict: there's the Capitol, which has money and power, and there are the Districts, which don't.&nbsp; The Districts are intentionally impoverished as a way of keeping them ignorant and obedient.&nbsp; Money (or lack thereof) isn't a metaphor in <em>The Hunger Games</em>, but it seems to be in <em>Harry Potter</em>, where social class becomes a marker for moral stature.&nbsp; If money is indicative of arrogance and prejudice—if not fully fledged evil—then disadvantage become the mark of goodness, familiarity, and trustworthiness.&nbsp; However, the conflict within <em>Harry Potter</em> is not about class (like it is in <em>The Hunger Games</em>); it's about a broader concept of good verses evil that never truly acknowledges the extent to which, by implication, either of those are influenced by class status.</p>
<p>More broadly, <em>Harry Potter</em> masks class difference, while <em>The Hunger Games</em> accentuates it. &nbsp;Indeed, one of the more fantastical elements of <em>Harry Potter</em> is that it takes place entirely at a very elite boarding school, where all young witches and wizards are admitted based on their ability to perform magic, rather than their ability to pay.&nbsp; Meanwhile, prep schools in the real world remain bastions of economic elitism (for context, the <em>New York Times</em> reported this week that non-boarding private prep schools in Manhattan <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/nyregion/scraping-the-40000-ceiling-at-new-york-city-private-schools.html">now cost upwards of $40,000 per year</a>).&nbsp; Having characters of diverse class backgrounds attend the same school, with all the trappings of wealth, conceals class difference by appearing to elevate everyone.</p>
<p>In <em>Harry Potter</em>, then, social class is a way of telling us something about the characters more than the actual lived reality or a source of conflict that it becomes in <em>The Hunger Games</em>. This is because in the wizarding world, power doesn't come just come from money and other forms of social privilege, power comes from magic—and it seems that magic is quite an equalizer.</p>
<p>But there's no magic in <em>The Hunger Games</em>.&nbsp; While Harry was rescued from his room under the stairs and swept off into the land of magic, there's no one to save Katniss from starving except herself. And when she gets swept away to a land of wealth and privilege, it's to kill or be killed.</p>
<p><em>More on Katniss and </em>The Hunger Games<em> coming tomorrow!</em></p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-finding-north-food-feminist-film-review-sundance"target="_blank">Finding North</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-were-not-broke-feminist-film-review-economy-sundance"target="_blank">We're Not Broke</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-class-difference-harry-potter-hunger-games#commentsHarry Potterheroesinequalitysocial classThe Hunger GamesBooksWed, 01 Feb 2012 19:52:09 +0000Gretchen Sisson15057 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: "Finding North"http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-finding-north-food-feminist-film-review-sundance
<p><em><a href="http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/120066/finding_north" ><img style="float: left;" src="http://www.sundance.org/images/filmguide/2012/120066-1.jpg" alt="a young white woman holding an animal" hspace="10" /></a></em></p>
<p><em>This is the second of three posts on films <a href="/post/the-99-the-queen-of-versailles-sundance-feminist-film-review"target="_blank">from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival</a> addressing inequality, poverty, and social class.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/120066/finding_north">Finding North</a></em> is a title so perfect it doesn't fully sink in until after you've finished watching the film.&nbsp; The documentary by filmmakers Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush doesn't allude to it at any point during its 84 minutes (except in song lyrics during the opening credits), but it provides a powerful paradigm for the rest of the film: quite simply, any country whose citizens go hungry while there is enough food has lost its direction and must get back on course. &nbsp;This might seem straightforward, but in a climate where Republican nominees call Barack Obama the "food stamp President" as a slur, it seems even the idea of making sure the American people have food has become a politicized one.</p>
<p>The film tells the stories of Rosie, a fifth grader in Colorado; Barbie, a single mother of two in Philadelphia; and Tremonica, a second grader in Mississippi. While the film stays true to the individual accounts, it doesn't shy away from the complex political issues behind hunger that affect all of us.</p>
<p>Farm subsidies, originally intended to help family farms during the Great Depression, are now sent mostly to huge agribusinesses that process corn, soy, and wheat—the staples of high calorie, low nutrition foods.&nbsp; Thus, the cheapest foods are the worst for you.&nbsp; Tremonica's mother points out that, for $3.00, she can buy 312 calories of fruit and vegetables, or nearly 4,000 calories of chips and cookies.</p>
<p>Like Tremonica's mother, <a href="http://www.witnessestohunger.org/Mothers-Children/Mothers/82/motherId__30/">Barbie</a> also struggles to feed her children.&nbsp; Her son suffers from some cognitive and speech delays, which doctors attribute to his nutritional needs not being met.&nbsp; After facing unemployment, Barbie is excited to secure a job, only to find that her salary isn't enough to allow her to feed her children, but is enough for make her ineligible for food assistance.</p>
<p>The documentary also tackles food deserts (areas of the country where there are no full grocery stores within 10 miles), the close relationship between being hungry and health-related weight issues (to paraphrase expert <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stuffed-Starved-Hidden-Battle-System/dp/1933633492">Raj Patel</a>, both can represent the lack of power necessary to command the nutrition one needs), and the inadequacy of school lunch programs (for which funding was recently marginally increased—with resources removed from food stamp allocations).</p>
<p>The most powerful argument of <em>Finding North</em>, though, is that charities such as churches, food banks, and individual donations do not represent a sufficient solution to the problem at hand.&nbsp; One of the film's strongest moments is when Barbie, along with other mothers, travels to Washington to lobby for policies that will reduce hunger in the United States as a "<a href="http://www.witnessestohunger.org/">Witness to Hunger</a>."&nbsp; Will fixing hunger cost money? Yes.&nbsp; But it will also cost us the health and well-being of our citizens to ignore it.</p>
<p>(Notably, one audience member seemed to miss this point. After raising his hand to ask if anyone had thought of starting a Kickstarter campaign to support school lunch programs, the filmmakers passed the microphone to Top Chef Tom Colicchio, who appears in the film.&nbsp; It seems that Chef Colicchio is a reliable go-to person whenever you need help setting someone straight: he reaffirmed the argument that government intervention was necessary to address hunger.)</p>
<p>One of the most heart-wrenching portrayls is that of 10 year-old Rosie, who lives with her parents and grandparents, all of whom work. Rosie eagerly awaits the food bank bags that arrive at her home each week and goes through them excitedly: peanut butter and Ramen noodles, held up like Christmas presents. She hesitantly shows the cameras into her room, which also serves as pantry, laundry, and bedroom for her sister (Rosie sleeps on a pillow and blanket on the floor), but proudly points to the flower she hung on the window to "make it nice."</p>
<p>Rosie has two dreams: that she can be an honor roll student (her teacher says—and Rosie admits—that hunger distracts her in the classroom, making schoolwork a challenge), and that the people from <em><a href="/post/he-99-welcome-home-deserving-people-extreme-makeover-home-edition-feminism-class-TV">Extreme Makeover: Home Edition</a></em> will come visit her family, tear their home down, and build a new one.</p>
<p>But, honestly, what other hopes should Rosie have? Why should she believe that happy endings come from anywhere other than television shows?&nbsp; Why should she believe in the American Dream, when the country can't find a way to feed her—or the 50 million other Americans living with food insecurity?</p>
<p><em>Learn more about</em> <a href="http://www.takepart.com/findingnorth">Finding North</a> <em>and <a href="http://feedingamerica.org/">food insecurity in the United States</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-the-queen-of-versailles-sundance-feminist-film-review"target="_blank">The Queen of Versailles</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-undercover-boss-labor-feminism-television"target="_blank">Undercover Boss and the Undervalued Worker</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-finding-north-food-feminist-film-review-sundance#commentshungersocial classSundance Film FestivalMoviesFri, 27 Jan 2012 17:55:34 +0000Gretchen Sisson14972 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: "The Queen of Versailles"http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-queen-of-versailles-sundance-feminist-film-review
<p><img src="http://www.sundance.org/images/filmguide/2012/120034-1.jpg" alt="A blond white woman in a fancy house surrounded by children. She appears overwhelmed" /> </p>
<p><em>Greetings from Park City, Utah! I'm here for the Sundance Film Festival, checking out many films that you should put on your "must see" list for the coming year:&nbsp;</em><a href="http://invisiblewarmovie.com/">The Invisible War</a><em> (a documentary on the high rates of and startlingly incompetent responses to sexual assault in the military), </em><a href="http://ethelmovie.com/">Ethel</a><em> (a touching, funny, and very personal documentary on Robert Kennedy's wife, made by his daughter, director Rory Kennedy). Included on that list is </em><a href="http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/120034/the_queen_of_versailles">The Queen of Versailles</a><em>, which is both an infuriating and humanizing portrait of the economic collapse from the perspective of one of the country's richest families.</em></p>
<p>If there's one theme I've noticed in my first few days at the Sundance Film Festival, it's that filmmakers have found inspiration in our current economic climate.&nbsp; There's Nicholas Jarecki's <em>Arbitrage</em>, about a hedge fund billionaire making decisions of ambiguous moral (and financial) integrity; Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce's <em>We're Not Broke</em>, an exposé on corporate tax loopholes; Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's <em>Detropia</em>, on the rise and decline on Detroit in the last century; and many others that I hope to see and write about in the coming week.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/120034/the_queen_of_versailles">The Queen of Versailles</a></em> takes the "let them eat cake!" for personal stories of the economic collapse, this one told from the perspective of the 1%. Lauren Greenfield's documentary film focuses on David Siegel, a time-share resort billionaire, and his wife, Jackie.&nbsp; Greenfield began filming in 2007, when the Siegels were in the midst of building their 96,000 square foot home nicknamed Versailles (because their 26,000 square foot home simply wasn't large enough).&nbsp; The palatial home is infinitely, indefensibly large, a planned monument to the pinnacle of American consumption.</p>
<p>Then, of course, the Siegels' dreams collapsed, along with so many the dreams of so many others.&nbsp; The millions of dollars of marble, the Fabergé eggs, the antique furniture—all of which were set to furnish the grandiosely tacky home—sit in storage.</p>
<p>The film centers on Jackie, who challenges our expectations at every turn. She's a beauty queen (a former Mrs. Florida), who, when faced with the choice to either become a secretary or a computer engineer, went to college to become a computer engineer.&nbsp; She's a surgically enhanced third wife of a man thirty years her senior, who displays genuine affection for and protection of her husband.&nbsp; She gives a childhood friend $5,000 to help her keep her house in the midst of her own financial crisis, and, along with her own seven children, she's raising her brother's daughter.</p>
<p>She's also incredibly, intensely infuriating.</p>
<p>Jackie says she'd never have had so many children if she'd known she couldn't afford nannies; she bemoans the fact that her children will have to go to college and get jobs.&nbsp; She's seemingly oblivious to the chaos around her: she spends frivolously, she allows her innumerable dogs to relieve themselves on the floor, she says obtuse things to her housekeeper like, "Aren't you glad you won't have to clean this house [Versailles]?"&nbsp; In one scene she goes Christmas shopping for her children (at Walmart; she's trying to economize) and buys her son a bike.&nbsp; When she returns home, we see at least 20 children's bikes of all sizes in a haphazard pile in the garage.&nbsp; When she flies commercial with her children (for the first time in their lives), she goes to the rental car counter and asks the Hertz representative: "What's my driver's name?"</p>
<p>The audience groans.</p>
<p>Neither of the Siegels had wealthy upbringings, but they have fully adopted the flagrant conspicuous consumption and extravagance that so often accompanies their level of wealth. It's as if there's a script billionaires should follow, and they're just reading their lines.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But, at the same time, their vulnerabilities are candid and relatable.&nbsp; The Siegels are wealthy because they sold real estate—specifically, they sold timeshares that people couldn't afford—which they used to build Versailles, which <em>they</em> couldn't afford.&nbsp; Their dreams for a bigger, better lifestyles were only possible because they could sell that dream to everyone else.&nbsp; When the real estate bubble burst, they were in the same situation as so many others because they'd bought what they were selling.</p>
<p>I'm not suggesting we should feel sorry for Jackie and her family: they remain, to an extent, <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/01/sundance-2012-queen-of-versailles-lawsuit.html">out-of-touch and defensive</a>. &nbsp;Still, her story can show the ways in which the economic crisis can bring out not only the hierarchical differences that divide us, but the hopes and flaws that unite us.</p>
<p>And, if that lesson doesn't ring true, at least this one might: if you want to live an oblivious and extravagant lifestyle without being tragically humbled, perhaps don't name your home Versailles.</p>
<p><strong>Previously</strong>: <a href="/post/the-99-undercover-boss-labor-feminism-television" target="_blank">Undercover Boss and the Undervalued Worker</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-real-housewives-of-atlanta-aren%E2%80%99t-our-kind-of-people-feminism-class-television" target="_blank">Why the Real Housewives of Atlanta Aren't "Our Kind of People"</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-queen-of-versailles-sundance-feminist-film-review#commentssocial classSundance Film FestivalMoviesWed, 25 Jan 2012 19:08:57 +0000Gretchen Sisson14951 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: Undercover Boss and the Undervalued Workerhttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-undercover-boss-labor-feminism-television
<p><img style="float: left;" src="http://f2.washington.edu/teams/nd/sites/default/files/newsletter-images/2011-winter/undercover-boss.jpg" alt="the logo for undercover boss, with the words in yellow over a cityscape" width="350" height="301" hspace="10" />These days are tough for the American worker: the continuing recession and <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/152063/Unemployment-Mid-January.aspx">enduring unemployment</a>, along with the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/afl-cio-launches-tv-ad-campaign-as-unions-fight-declining-membership-growing-hostility/2012/01/17/gIQAnsi75P_story.html">decline of unions</a>, make securing and keeping quality employment a challenge for many. And <em>Undercover Boss</em> isn't making it much easier.</p>
<p>The premise of <em>Undercover Boss</em> is just what it sounds like: executives assume thin disguises, false identities, and contrived reasons for cameras to follow them around, and then shadow their employees to see what's "really happening" in their business.&nbsp; Of course, the shadowed employees are by no means selected randomly: each is either notably incompetent at their job or, more frequently, an example of a <a href="/post/he-99-welcome-home-deserving-people-extreme-makeover-home-edition-feminism-class-TV">truly "deserving,"</a> self-sacrificing employee with a story of family hardship, obstacles overcome, or mountains of medical and school debt. &nbsp;At the end of each episode, the executive meets with the employees, reveals his or her identity, and typically rewards them with promotions or by paying off their debt or gifting extravagant vacations.</p>
<p>On Sunday's season three premiere, Diamond Resorts CEO Stephen Cloobeck visited several of his hotels.&nbsp; Cloobeck is instantly unlikable.&nbsp; He talks about wanting to be a doctor or a surgeon, but that career path was "going to limit the amount of money [he] could make," so he went into hospitality. He tells his wife to pack his suitcase for him ("like you always do") before he leaves (and tells her to include a love note). He mentions how nice it is to avoid lines at the airport…. because he flies in a private jet. He can't possibly stay in a regular hotel because his former "British commando" security guard says the structural integrity of the windows is lacking.</p>
<p>In short, Stephen embodies everything most people object to in the 1%. He's out of touch, spoiled, and living entirely in a world that revolves around Stephen and maximizing the amount of money he can earn.&nbsp; It seems redemptive when he later pays off an employee's mortgage, and another's school debt, and another's mother's medical bills.&nbsp; (It also seems weird when he gives one employee a subscription to a meat-of-the-month club and a industrial refrigerator. But, whatever.)</p>
<p>Yes, this superficial redemption <em>feels</em> good.&nbsp; In fact, it feels better than it probably is.&nbsp; What about all the employees Stephen didn't shadow? Is he improving working conditions company wide? Is he ensuring all employees have living wages?&nbsp; Is he making the workplace more flexible for working parents, or increasing access to benefits, or developing a scholarship program for continuing education for his employees?&nbsp; Not really (though he did tell one worker he'd get him better safety equipment, and some past CEOs have taken a more systemic approach—but they're few and far between). &nbsp;For working-class people, these policies can be the difference between sustainable employment that actually allows them to support their families, and something that falls far short of that.</p>
<p>That's what unions are supposed to do. They're supposed to help workers have jobs that are safe, fairly compensated, and provide opportunities for upward mobility. &nbsp;But unions are having trouble doing that these days, in large part because so many legislators and executives (like the ones on <em>Undercover Boss</em>) are going so far to limit their power.&nbsp;As other writers have said, the show is "<a href="http://www.alternet.org/media/148652/%22undercover_boss%22_tv_show_gives_corporations_free_pr_and_is_no_substitute_for_worker_organizing/">no substitute for worker organizing</a>"—not by a longshot. Many of the executives featured on the show are specifically anti-union; they've fired pro-union leaders and campaigned <a href="http://americanrightsatwork.org/blog/2010/11/01/undercover-boss-pro-worker-tv-or-corporate-pr/">against workers' rights legislation</a>. &nbsp;Unsurprisingly, union leaders aren't huge fans of <em>Undercover Boss </em>either, which the <a href="http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/08/undercover-boss-a-fairy-tale-that-ignores-grim-reality/">AFL-CIO referred to</a> as&nbsp; "a sweet, happy-ending tale for a handful of workers, but make-believe for millions of others." &nbsp;But it's no fairy tale, and Stephen Cloobeck is no fairy godfather (despite his ability to decide who deserves what and grant wishes accordingly). &nbsp;He's a real employer with real responsibilities to his employees, and they deserve more than a few elaborate gifts doled out in what amounts to an extended public relations effort for the company.</p>
<p>Unions have bigger problems than a flawed television show, though. They have <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g4j_nckc5TBeUg5m8pYcsA8srx6A?docId=CNG.12a0e5692890342566e9d97aa2af9cd6.4b1">union-busting governors</a>, increasing <a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/a-challenge-for-unions-in-public-opinion/">disapproval ratings in public opinion polls</a>, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/afl-cio-launches-tv-ad-campaign-as-unions-fight-declining-membership-growing-hostility/2012/01/17/gIQAnsi75P_story.html">declining membership</a> (and, consequently, political power).&nbsp; This is a real loss for the American worker, and it's a loss that they'll feel long after the warm fuzzy feelings from watching <em>Undercover Boss</em> have faded.</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-%E2%80%9Cthere%E2%80%99s-always-money-in-the-banana-stand%E2%80%9D-class-passing-on-arrested-development-television-feminism"target="_blank">"There's Always Money in the Banana Stand": Class Passing on Arrested Development</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-real-housewives-of-atlanta-aren%E2%80%99t-our-kind-of-people-feminism-class-television"target="_blank">Why the Real Housewives of Atlanta Aren't "Our Kind of People"</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-undercover-boss-labor-feminism-television#commentssocial classUndercover BossunionsTVThu, 19 Jan 2012 19:17:46 +0000Gretchen Sisson14804 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: Why the Real Housewives of Atlanta Aren’t "Our Kind of People"http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-real-housewives-of-atlanta-aren%E2%80%99t-our-kind-of-people-feminism-class-television
<p><img style="float: left;" src="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT5Mvg8SjauDdRfsJKNjjjFpOdvJT1zJICYqdSmHkTfMn4ah8X54dgZWwbf" alt="The women of real housewives of Atlanta" hspace="10" /></p>
<p>Few women of color are allowed to represent themselves on television with much nuance; frequently they are reduced to <a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780300165418" target="_blank">stock characters like mammies and Jezebels</a> that deny them full, complex humanity. &nbsp;Successful women of color are slammed with stereotypes of the "Angry Black Woman" or are forced to represent all women of their race as impossibly perfect standard-bearers.</p>
<p>Within this all of this, the <em>Real Housewives of Atlanta</em>&nbsp;become caricatured and over-representative of what we think wealthy black women should look like.</p>
<p>The fact that Atlanta was chosen as the setting for the one&nbsp;<em>Real Housewives</em>&nbsp;series with a majority-black cast is no accident (just as surely as the <a href="http://www.theroot.com/views/dance-race-and-social-grace-real-housewives-dc">DC housewives being majority-white in a mostly black city</a> was no accident). "There is no major metropolitan area that has a better-organized black upper class than the city of Atlanta, writes Lawrence Otis Graham in&nbsp;<em><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Our_kind_of_people.html?id=_FWTEBzgNdcC">Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class</a>.</em>&nbsp;"Exerting its power in the worlds of politics, business, and academia, Atlanta's black elite sets that gold standard for its counterparts in other cities."&nbsp; Said one of Graham's interviewees: "These people [the members of the black upper class in Atlanta] will stare you in the face after you've told them of your great accomplishments… and the only thing that will matter to them is who in your family went to Morehouse, and for how many generations your family has lived in Atlanta."</p>
<p>One can't help but feel the&nbsp;<em><a href="/post/real-housewives-more-problems">Real Housewives of Atlanta</a></em>&nbsp;wouldn't quite make the cut based on that description—yet these women are some of the few examples of black affluence that we see on television. &nbsp;With so few shows having real racial and ethnic inclusivity, and with the <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs-between-whites-blacks-hispanics/">wealth gap between white people and people of color continuing to broaden</a>, this is a misrepresentation in several ways.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.whattamisaid.com/2009/08/whats-worse-rhoa-or-race-based.html">To quote from the blog <em>What Tami Said</em></a>, <em>Housewives</em>&nbsp;have become the center of problematic discussions around black womanhood and wealth—not just on the show, but certainly in the way many people <em>talk</em>&nbsp;about the show and perceive the women on it:</p>
<blockquote><p>As far as I can tell, nearly all of the <em>Real Housewives</em> are bullying, narcissistic, back-stabbing, money-grubbing, cliquey, disloyal, arrogant, self-involved, willfully ignorant, poorly spoken, wasteful and tackily nouveau riche. It makes for good television. But the Orange County, New York and New Jersey wives are not seen as representative of white culture or white womanhood. They are not discussed using racialized terms. And no white folks are spending time being embarrassed by their hijinks. By contrast, the Atlanta dysfunction is positioned as uniquely black, confirmation of a host of stereotypes about poor, ignorant, urban people; loud, angry black women; and shiftless black men with myriad baby mamas.</p></blockquote>
<p>Melissa Harris Perry also discusses this concept in <em><a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780300165418-0">Sister Citizen</a></em>, regarding fictive kinship, defined as the reciprocal social and economic relationships within communities of color: "If one's sense of self is connected to the positive accomplishments of other African Americans," she says, "then it is also linked to stereotypes and other negative portrayals of that race."&nbsp; In other words, white women aren't embarrassed <a href="/post/sometimes-the-real-housewives-are-a-little-too-real">when the <em>Real Housewives of Beverly Hills</em>&nbsp;behave badly</a>, but women of color very well might be when the&nbsp;<em>Real Housewives of Atlanta</em>&nbsp;do the exact same thing. We see disproportionately few representations of women of color in popular television, with even fewer of wealthy women of color (the First Lady, Oprah, and a select few within the music and entertainment industries being the notable exceptions). White viewers have other images of white women to counter problematic ones. Black audiences have few such counterpoints.</p>
<p>The picture gets even fuzzier when you consider race <em>and</em> class.&nbsp; Most viewers understand that the housewives in Orange County and New York City are not the "real upper class," because we know there's a different kind of white upper class that we<em>&nbsp;</em>see represented elsewhere.&nbsp; The black upper class, though, is harder to find. &nbsp;Even the fictional representations of black affluence that were on air in the 1980s and '90s have become less visible. &nbsp;Some of the most widely known and longest-running television shows featuring mostly black casts have told stories of affluence: the upwardly mobile entrepreneur on&nbsp;<em>The Jeffersons</em>, the doctor and lawyer parents on&nbsp;<em>The Cosby Show</em>, the mostly privileged college students on&nbsp;<em>A Different World</em>, the street-smart kid transplanted to a wealthy neighborhood on&nbsp;<em>Fresh Price of Bel Air</em>.&nbsp; These shows didn't ignore broader discussions of race and racism:&nbsp;<em>The Jeffersons</em>&nbsp;addressed the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow that had profound implications for the characters' poor beginnings;&nbsp;<em>A Different World</em>&nbsp;dealt with race, class, and gender relations head on, discussing fraught subjects like date rape, the ERA, HIV/AIDS, and the Clarence Thomas hearings.&nbsp; These shows set the bar high, not just in terms of diversity, but in regards to social commentary and humor generally.&nbsp; Still, by virtue of their affluence, most of the characters represented a narrow facet of the black American experience.</p>
<p>Today's <em>Real Housewives</em>, by virtue of their excessive wealth rather than mere upper-middle class stability,&nbsp;represent an even narrower demographic. &nbsp;When one of the few shows that overtly portrays black wealth (<em><a href="http://www.racialicious.com/2011/08/01/all-we-are-gonna-say-about-basketball-wives/">Basketball Wives</a></em>&nbsp;is another) is mostly a montage of "catfights" and shopping sprees, it is problematic. Without counterpoints, misrepresentations like these feed the narrative that black people "<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/19/996312/-Bachmann-Spits-It-Out-Black-People-Dont-Deserve-Government-Money-Updated">don't deserve</a>" or "<a href="http://madamenoire.com/117383/lifestyles-of-the-dumb-and-famou-celeb-bankruptcy/">can't handle</a>" money.</p>
<p>In <em><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Our_kind_of_people.html?id=_FWTEBzgNdcC">Our Kind of People</a></em>, author Graham describes the community of black elites in Atlanta. These families didn't deal with sitting in the back of the bus (because they had cars) or segregated schools (because they went to private ones), but they still accumulated wealth in a divisive, racist society.&nbsp; Their children belonged to <a href="http://jackandjillinc.org/">Jack and Jill</a>.&nbsp; Their mothers went to Spelman and Fisk and their fathers went to Howard or Morehouse.&nbsp; Both parents were members of black sororities (AKAs , Deltas) and fraternities (Sigma Pi Phi, the Guardsmen). These examples more closely align with what we think of when we consider the traditional, usually white, upper class in the US, and they carry connotations of respectability and prestige—but we don't see this variant of black wealth. &nbsp;We see the <em>Real Housewives</em>&nbsp;and, because of their shortcomings and the lack of alternate representations, feel free judge all black women accordingly.</p>
<p>None of this is meant to imply that the examples in <em>Our Kind of People </em>are somehow better than others because of their exclusivity (they aren't), or that&nbsp;wealthy black Americans don't face racism (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_controversy">they do</a>, all the time), or that affluent people of color enjoy the same level of class privilege as their white counterparts (<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/08/02/affluent-african-americans-live-in-poorer-neighborhoods-than-middle-class-whites/">they don't</a>), or that we should pity the very rich <em>Housewives</em> who don't meet the class hierarchical criteria of an old vanguard (we shouldn't).&nbsp;&nbsp; But the way women of color are represented in our culture is so very flawed that we really must consider the ways social class plays into these harmful stereotypes in order to thoroughly unpack the racism at the core.</p>
<p>So, what's the biggest problem?&nbsp; That people of color in this country are disproportionately poor, while people on television are disproportionately white and wealthy?&nbsp; That the <em>Real Housewives</em> are turned into representatives for all black women?&nbsp; That we don't see more representations of black wealth to counteract what is shown on reality television?&nbsp; I don't know, and I don't know that scrapping the entire <em>Real Housewives</em> franchise once and for all will fix things.&nbsp; But I do know that this show (and the racist discourse surrounding it) does a disservice to all women, but particularly black women, and to black Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-the-trashy-people-trash-talking-on-trash-television-or-jersey-shore" target="_blank">Trashy People Talking Trash on Trash Television, or Jersey Shore</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-%E2%80%9Cthere%E2%80%99s-always-money-in-the-banana-stand%E2%80%9D-class-passing-on-arrested-development-television-feminism" target="_blank">"There's Always Money in the Banana Stand": Class Passing on Arrested Development</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-real-housewives-of-atlanta-aren%E2%80%99t-our-kind-of-people-feminism-class-television#commentsreality tvsocial classThe Real Housewives of AtlantaTVWed, 18 Jan 2012 18:00:49 +0000Gretchen Sisson14749 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: “There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand”: Class Passing on Arrested Developmenthttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-%E2%80%9Cthere%E2%80%99s-always-money-in-the-banana-stand%E2%80%9D-class-passing-on-arrested-development-television-feminism
<p><img style="float: left;" src="http://www.remotepatrolled.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Arrested-Development1.jpeg" alt="promo photo of the cast of Arrested Development in front of an orange background" hspace="10" width="282" height="300" />Social class is about more than money; <a href="/post/the-99-money-cant-buy-you-class-privilege-wealth-feminism">that's been one of the enduring points I've been touching on throughout this series</a>. In Wednesday's <a href="/post/the-99-the-trashy-people-trash-talking-on-trash-television-or-jersey-shore">piece on <em>Jersey Shore</em></a>, I argued that the narrative surrounding that show is classist, regardless of the amount of money the castmates now have. Perhaps, though, the inverse example of the fictional Bluth family of <em>Arrested Development</em> is more compelling.&nbsp; It's certainly more entertaining.</p>
<p>After to a string of ambiguous white-collar crimes committed by George, the family patriarch, the formerly wealthy Bluths now face assured financial disaster.&nbsp; The only one who seems to notice is Michael, who walks around asking, "Why am I the only one who seems to get how much trouble this family is in?" and "Is nobody even gonna try to get a job?"</p>
<p>Michael, stop being such a downer.&nbsp; Once you have the social and cultural capital, you can pretty much fake it, even when the cash goes up in flames.&nbsp; (Which it does, quite literally, when Michael and his son George Michael burn down the family's frozen banana stand, only to discover later there were $250,000 lining the walls. The family without money to burn has done just that.)</p>
<p>For the Bluths, their wealth is a performance, but their class privilege is real. They live in a former shell of their old life: they share a model home built by the once-lucrative Bluth construction company that stands alone in an unfinished development. Beautiful inside and out, the home deteriorates throughout the series, but the façade remains intact.&nbsp; And to most of the members of this family, that's what's really important.</p>
<p>What's hilarious about the Bluths is how much they pass, and how far they get on so little. Without jobs, common sense, or any shred of adult reasoning ability or discipline, they coast along from ridiculous premise to absurd scenario on the sheer expectation that exceptions will be made, that money will materialize from somewhere, that they'll be met with success.&nbsp; And it usually does, because that's what having class privilege means.&nbsp; They act and spend as they once did because they still want to be perceived as wealthy.&nbsp; They expect special treatment from the judicial system, and they receive it.&nbsp; They maintain access to the same wealthy social circles, prestigious schools, charity galas, and country clubs—although their club membership is downgraded to "pool-only."</p>
<p>How do they do it? We're never really sure. When Lindsey and Maeby secure the appearance of employment for a single day, they each independently goes out to lunch: "Lindsey and Maeby separately went to the same restaurant to celebrate the jobs they hadn't actually done with money they hadn't actually earned." (Of course, after her celebration, Lindsey is hungover and sleeps through the job.) Mostly, though, they're able to keep up appearances because they know how to keep up appearances and they have enough privilege to do it—and that's what passing is really about.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(sociology)">sociological idea of "passing"</a> is the act of appearing as something other than what you are, usually (but not always) as a person who is more privileged than you are so that you can have access to that privilege yourself. It becomes particularly charged when discussing social constructs such as <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=q3-FwKnyhhEC&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PR7&amp;dq=racial+passing&amp;ots=X43VH7kydS&amp;sig=Ma3bF2RFd5bv2iu4eDl2AWkCx_4#v=onepage&amp;q=racial%20passing&amp;f=false">race</a> and gender that can have physical markers.&nbsp; We like to think that, without those markers, class passing is more straightforward. If you were poor, and now you have money, you're upper class—even if you don't have money, you can buy one expensive outfit and fit right in at the party, right? Not really, and not only because a privileged past begets a more privileged future.&nbsp; It's because class background influences not only the ways people spend money, but their values, decisions, priorities, and ability to negotiate a more privileged world.&nbsp; As a friend and fellow sociologist once said: "You might be able to afford the expensive art, but you'll hang it in the wrong place." And the people with more cultural capital and a more privileged background? They'll notice. And you won't pass.</p>
<p>The Bluths can pull it off though because they aren't trying to pass as something something new; they're trying to pass as what they once were.&nbsp; And so it works for them, in a hilarious fashion.</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-downton-abbey-and-historical-representations-of-social-class-feminism-television" target="_blank">"But look how far we've come!" Downton Abbey and Historical Representations of Social Class</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-the-trashy-people-trash-talking-on-trash-television-or-jersey-shore" target="_blank">Trashy People Talking Trash on Trash Television, or Jersey Shore</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-%E2%80%9Cthere%E2%80%99s-always-money-in-the-banana-stand%E2%80%9D-class-passing-on-arrested-development-television-feminism#commentsArrested Developmentpassingsocial classTVFri, 13 Jan 2012 19:18:02 +0000Gretchen Sisson14706 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: Trashy People Talking Trash on Trash Television, or Jersey Shorehttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-trashy-people-trash-talking-on-trash-television-or-jersey-shore
<p><img style="float: left;" src="http://media.nj.com/entertainment_impact_celebrities/photo/shorejpg-a14c0a054689f7f0_large.jpg" alt="the tanned cast of Jersey Shore hanging out on the beach" hspace="10" width="216" height="144" />So, <em>Jersey Shore</em> is back again.&nbsp; I guess I can't avoid writing about it any longer.</p>
<p>The show has drawn ire from Italian American groups for its stereotypical portrayals and its use of the terms "guido" and "guidette."&nbsp; It's aired scenes of <a href="/post/mtv-pulls-the-punch-but-why">Snooki getting punched</a> in the face by a man and had castmate Ronnie arrested for aggravated assault. It has survived rumors that the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/2010-06-07/jersey-shore-house-is-std-central/">entire cast has herpes</a> and the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/television/dell-pulls-ads-jersey-shore-mtv-show-loses-sponsor-claims-ethnic-bashing-article-1.434880">withdrawal of corporate sponsors</a>.&nbsp; The show is a mess of sex, violence, ethnic stereotypes, shrill voices, tan bodies, and bumped hair.</p>
<p>Like its predecessor <em>Jerry Springer</em>—with its title sequence featuring a television in a trash can—this is Trash TV, featuring people with lower-class backgrounds, indiscriminate sexual appetites, the capacity for violence, extreme alcohol use, and moral compasses that point to the tanning salon rather than due north.</p>
<p>It's a <a href="http://www.ahherald.com/columns-mainmenu-28/armchair-critic/7778-jersey-shore-trash-tv">trash show</a>. <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/tv/index.ssf/2010/01/jersey_shore_may_be_gone_but_t.html">Really</a>.</p>
<p>They trash talk. And wear "<a href="http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/01/jersey-shore-has-mtvs-cash-cow-jumped-the-shark.html">trashtasic get-ups</a>."</p>
<p>Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi's <a href="http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-02-04/gossip/27055406_1_jersey-shore-nude-pictures-snooki">clothes are trashy</a>—and she writes <a href="http://sfluxe.com/2011/12/29/snooki-novel-has-more-trash-than-nj-landfill-your-houston-news/">books full of trash</a>!</p>
<p>A former castmate is referred to by the nickname "<a href="http://gawker.com/5491315/how-jersey-shore-ruined-one-girls-life">Trash Bags</a>."</p>
<p>And, seriously, <a href="http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-01-05/gossip/27086472_1_jersey-shore-snooki-garbage">Snooki wakes up in a garbage can "at least once a month."</a></p>
<p>This diction? It's not just describing the show and the quality of entertainment it provides.&nbsp; It's beginning to describe the people.</p>
<p>Trailer trash, white trash—these ways of describing low-income people aren't new.&nbsp; They're meant to make people quite literally disposable, a way of denying their humanity and their potential to offer anything of value.</p>
<p>With <em>Jersey Shore</em>, though, we get the "trash" without talking about money at all.&nbsp; What the castmates wear, how they behave, how they style their hair, how they speak, these all communicate to the viewer their lack of cultural capital and, consequently, their social standing.&nbsp;</p>
<p>If that was in any way unclear, Abercrombie and Fitch spelled it out in a publicity stunt last summer, when they paid Mike "<a href="/post/isnt-he-lovely-the-cult-of-muscularity">The Situation</a>" Sorrentino <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/business/abercrombie-offers-jersey-shore-cast-a-paid-non-product-placement.html?_r=2&amp;hp">to not wear their clothes</a>: "This association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand."&nbsp; Get it, trashy people?&nbsp; You can't wear our clothes, and you really shouldn't aspire to them; they are simply too far above you.</p>
<p>The castmates play up this image; they embrace and caricature it—but really, what else can they do?&nbsp; They've become the spectacle, but they aren't the tastemakers.&nbsp; They're the slut and hoes, the trailer trash, the stereotypes, the embarrassment.&nbsp; They're the butt of the joke –&nbsp;<a href="http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/politics/050310_White_House_Correspondents_Dinner">even if you're President Obama</a>.</p>
<p>More than that, though, is the knowledge that if poor people really are trash—if they're violent and drunk, if they're hypersexual, if they're stupid and uneducated, if they present themselves in a way that can't "pass" as anything but <em>what they are</em>—then we can blame them for their own poverty.&nbsp; Being poor isn't a function of systemic inequality, then, but laziness, incompetence, and moral laxity.&nbsp; It becomes easier to look the other way, to dismiss human beings as garbage, while still sitting riveted to our television sets by the spectacle they represent.</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-class-warfare-and-the-privileged-politics-of-mitt-romney" target="_blank">Class Warfare and the Privileged Politics of Mitt Romney</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-downton-abbey-and-historical-representations-of-social-class-feminism-television" target="_blank">"But look how far we've come!" Downton Abbey and Historical Representations of Social Class</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-the-trashy-people-trash-talking-on-trash-television-or-jersey-shore#commentsJersey Shoresocial classTVWed, 11 Jan 2012 18:49:30 +0000Gretchen Sisson14644 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: "But look how far we’ve come!" Downton Abbey and Historical Representations of Social Classhttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-downton-abbey-and-historical-representations-of-social-class-feminism-television
<p><img style="float: left;" src="http://www.webtvwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/downton-abbey-logo.PNG" alt="the giant old fancy house from Downton Abbey with the entire cast, about 20 white people in various stages of fancy dress, standing in front" hspace="10" width="379" height="400" />There's much to love about Masterpiece Theatre's <em>Downton Abbey</em>, which premiered Series 2 for American audiences last night on PBS. The drama, the costumes, the wry British humor, the sibling rivalries, the romances that seemed doomed from the start: if you can watch this show without getting pulled back into Edwardian England, you're stronger than I am.</p>
<p>The story revolves around the wealth Crawley family, which includes the Earl of Grantham, and his mother, wife, and three daughters, as well as the servants that work at their home, Downton Abbey.&nbsp; The first series took place between the sinking of the <em>Titanic</em> and England's entrance into World War I; last night's episode picked up two years later.&nbsp; Like its apparent inspiration <em>Upstairs, Downstairs</em>, which aired in the 1970s, the show has much to offer for a class analysis: the contrast between the lives of the Crawley family and <a href="/post/sexual-inadequacy-but-what-about-the-footman" target="_blank">the lives of the servants</a> is profound, to be sure. But there is also a nuance to the show that is missing in other television representations of class.&nbsp; The characters' moral compasses aren't guided exclusively by their wealth—there are heroes and villains living in both the servants' quarters and the opulent rooms of Downton Abbey.&nbsp; The stories from both upstairs and downstairs are equally compelling.&nbsp; Just as we want Mary, the Earl's eldest daughter, to find love, we also want it for Anna, the head housemaid.&nbsp; When the servants sacrifice their own hopes and dreams to benefit the Crawleys (such as when the housekeeper passes an opportunity at love because she doesn't want to leave Downton, or when the valet is blackmailed into leaving to protect the family's honor), these losses are seen as tragic, rather than the matter of course.&nbsp; And when one housemaid teaches herself to type and searches for a job as a secretary, her success is celebrated; when her replacement also dreams of life beyond servitude, the lady's maid who picks on her for aspirations is the villain.</p>
<p>Yet, what <em>Downton Abbey</em> also offers for the modern viewer is the idea that, today, class differences have been overcome.&nbsp; The stark separation between the lives of the family and the staff illustrate a segregation that is no longer overt in today's society.&nbsp; Few people have lives in literal servitude, and even fewer have actual servants.&nbsp; We like to believe that now, a hundred years later, class is really something entirely different, something blurrier, more transmutable, and more easily overcome.</p>
<p>Last July, Fox News jumped on the idea that "poor people are not what they used to be," citing a study showing that most poor people have amenities like refrigerators and microwaves, and a good number have cell phones, coffee makers, and cable television. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/19/1008526/-INCREDIBLE-Jon-Stewart-piece-on-right-wing-class-warfare!">Jon Stewart appropriately skewered them</a> for this simultaneously dismissive and demonizing idea that, because people living in poverty might have some very basic appliances in their homes, we needn't concern ourselves with their plight any longer.</p>
<p>There's still the sense, in some places, that poverty should look like the children of Dickensian London: waifs asking for a bit more unpalatable food; seriously ill children who joyfully wish merry Christmases once their fathers are giving a living wage. But, actually, <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/foodsecurity/stats_graphs.htm">14.5 percent of American households deal with food insecurity</a>, including 16.2 million children.&nbsp; And <a href="http://www.childrensdefense.org/policy-priorities/childrens-health/uninsured-children/uninsured-children-state.html">10.4 percent of children have no health insurance</a>—a total of 8 million uninsured young people.&nbsp; We've come pretty far, but we really aren't there yet.</p>
<p>On last night's <em>Downton Abbey</em>, when the Irish socialist revolutionary chauffer, Tom, confesses his love to the Earl's youngest daughter and nurse-in-training, Lady Sybil, he prophetically tells her that after the war, nothing will return to as it was.&nbsp; And he's right.&nbsp; World War I marked a change in the way of life for the British aristocracy, a change that would be cemented half a generation later by the return to war.&nbsp; The wars seemed to remind people that they were more similar than different.&nbsp; Yet, there's a reason that this fascination with class continues, and there's a reason that <em>Downton Abbey</em> is popular now, at this historical moment. &nbsp;We know that the lives of the characters will be turned upside down, that the class divisions that separate them will slowly become less important.&nbsp; And I think that we want to believe that for ourselves, today.</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/the-99-class-warfare-and-the-privileged-politics-of-mitt-romney" target="_blank">Class Warfare and the Privileged Politics of Mitt Romney</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-money-cant-buy-you-love-class-feminism-the-bachelor" target="_blank">Money Can't Buy You Love (and it Might Get in the Way)</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-downton-abbey-and-historical-representations-of-social-class-feminism-television#commentsDownton Abbeysocial classTVMon, 09 Jan 2012 18:25:38 +0000Gretchen Sisson14611 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThe 99%: Money Can't Buy You Love (and it Might Get in the Way)http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-money-cant-buy-you-love-class-feminism-the-bachelor
<p>Last night's premiere of <em>The Bachelor</em> was, well, about the same as every other premiere of <em>The Bachelor</em>.&nbsp; Some things never change: there were, of course, no discernible women of color for bachelor Ben to choose from. There were women who inexplicably sobbed over losing the chance to marry a man they'd known for only a few hours. And there were, as always, a few women who drank a bit too much of the free-flowing champagne and engaged in the first of the season's "cat fights."&nbsp;</p>
<p>And, of course, there were all the trappings of wealth at play—the mansion, the evening gowns, the champagne flutes, the limousines, and the previews of jet-setting dates and $50,000 engagement rings.&nbsp; This, apparently, is what romance is supposed to look like: lavish displays rather than real connections. We all know ABC is not dabbling in actual matchmaking; if so, they would have gone out of business long ago given their abysmal success rate. But they do prop up the idea that this is what romance <em>should</em> look like. And I think that's why the show works—not in the sense that it forms real, lasting relationships (it doesn't), but in the sense that the opulent, manipulated fairy tale nearly always leads to (seemingly) typical adults agreeing to marry someone they've known for about two months and never dated exclusively.&nbsp; The luxurious dates are intoxicating, even if the person you're dating isn't.</p>
<p>While <em>The Bachelor</em> may be the epitome of dating in excess, it's clear that ABC is footing the bill for each of those dates. If you want the over-the-top dates to continue after the cameras stop rolling, you better visit <em>Millionaire Matchmaker</em>'s Patti Stanger.&nbsp; She'll set you up with a millionaire, but, ladies, you'll pay the price: you'll have to "<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2011/09/patti-stanger-criticizes-smart-single-women-jews-gays/">dumb it down a little</a>" and remember that "<a href="http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2011winter/2011_winter_Pozner.php">you're not the leader in this situation; you let the man lead</a>."&nbsp; (I should note that she sells men short, too—women have to play stupid because "men aren't that smart" and the men who want ambitious women "fail at chivalry" and need to "shut their mouth[s].")</p>
<p>In TV world, money can buy you a faux romance and gender hyperconformity, but surely real-world dating is something different? Perhaps not. These shows didn't invent the fairytale romance, or even the "gold digger" or "trophy wife" stereotypes—they just wrap them in modern accoutrements and capitalize on them.&nbsp; In an analysis of 1.5 million users, the dating site OKCupid found that <a href="http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/">people exaggerate their income by about 20 percent</a>, with men exaggerating more than women and the exaggeration increasing with age. (They also found that people lie about their height and the recency of their profile pictures.) The clincher? Men with higher reported incomes receive more messages on the site (from both men and women, as far as I can tell).&nbsp; I'm not arguing that women are all money-hungry gold diggers (or that all women are interested in dating men), but I am suggesting that the age-old cultural narratives about female dependency, male financial responsibility, and importance of money in a romantic relationship are reinforced by these "reality" dating shows—and they're bad for both women <em>and </em>men.</p>
<p>All of this display, of course, masks the fact that social class difference can be a real challenge to romantic relationships. We might like to think that finding a partner with money is just a lucky windfall, but it's of course much more complicated. In 2005, the <em>New York Times</em> featured a series entitled "Class Matters" with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/national/class/MARRIAGE-FINAL.html?pagewanted=all">a piece specifically on cross-class relationships</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Marriages that cross class boundaries may not present as obvious a set of challenges as those that cross the lines of race or nationality. But in a quiet way, people who marry across class lines are also moving outside their comfort zones, into the uncharted territory of partners with a different level of wealth and education, and often, a different set of assumptions about things like manners, food, child-rearing, gift-giving, and how to spend vacations. In cross-class marriages, one partner will usually have more money, more options and, almost inevitably, more power in the relationship.</p></blockquote>
<p>Class difference, then, is not a boon for the less privileged person in the relationship, but a real challenge and potential source of conflict.&nbsp; Even those with a higher class background are denied real connection—while one may be "gold digging" the other is "slumming" and expected to move on to a more worthy (more privileged) partner once the novelty of the cross-class romance wears off.&nbsp; Of course, this power dynamic is particularly challenging when, in heterosexual relationships, the woman is the one with more money and a more privileged class background.</p>
<p>Shows like <em>The Bachelor</em> and <em>Millionaire Matchmaker</em> not only reduce romance to opulent displays of consumerism and gender conformity, but they distract us from actual consideration of the role of class in relationships and the need to negotiate those differences on a real, ongoing, interpersonal level.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/he-99-welcome-home-deserving-people-extreme-makeover-home-edition-feminism-class-TV"target="_blank">Welcome Home, Deserving People! Thoughts on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition</a>, <a href="/post/the-99-champagne-toasts-and-caviar-receptions-buying-the-american-wedding"target="_blank">Champagne Toasts and Caviar Receptions: Buying the American Wedding</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-99-money-cant-buy-you-love-class-feminism-the-bachelor#commentsdatingmillionaire matchmakerrelationshipssocial classThe BachelorSocial CommentaryTue, 03 Jan 2012 19:06:19 +0000Gretchen Sisson14484 at http://bitchmagazine.org